I don’t understand why I am at a loss at purchasing things for the baby. I know logically what I need (car seat, baby tub, newborn cloth diaper stash, clothing, blankets for swaddling, etc) yet here I sit, staring at the screen and feeling confused. I suppose part of it is that it’s been almost a decade since I was pregnant with my oldest son, or that I still have about 3 months to go (I am just now starting my 7th month), yet I have the money put aside to stock up on baby goods and unsure of WHAT to buy or WHERE to buy (would prefer online as much as possible). The only thing I have no worries about is feeding the baby (breastfeeding FTW!).

The products I need help with would be:

• cloth diapers (with my son I didn’t start until he was a year old, used pre-folds and covers)
• car seat (unsure of where to buy a quality one that isn’t Babies R Us or where to find safety reviews)
• clothes (my son was a January baby, this one is late Sept/early Oct)

Aside from that it’s fairly easy as I solely breastfeed (no pacifiers, no bottles), I co-sleep, no vax, no circ, carry the baby everywhere (although this time around I want a sling or as suggested by midsummerblue a Moby wrap), etc. I just can’t see myself prancing to a Target or Walmart or god even the mall to purchase everything I need for the baby. You would think living in Des Plaines (like 30 min from Chicago) I would have more options (which I guess I do except those options are hellishly expensive!). With Danny his biological father and I bought most of his clothes from a baby resale shop, that was about it.

I am getting worked up here over nothing, logically I know this, I think it’s my form of “nesting” or something heh.

The past week (almost two weeks at this point) has not been the best, both my 7yr old son and I have severe bronchitis, I had a surprise visit from my father (who I’ve not seen since March, he lives 15min away, have to wonder if he showed up due to my previous entry) who was spouting a lot of “well your sister said….” false information about my health, that I had extremely high blood pressure and had stopped vomiting… I have perfectly normal blood pressure and sadly, the hyperemesis is still with me like white on rice. Plus a lot of other crap was told to me. I had my mother tell me to rip up a $40 mother’s day gift check to me (that she told me to not cash until June 3rd). Money I planned on using to take my son to the zoo with since he missed out on his field trip at school due to the bronchitis. Granted I am really stressed about it all.

I am tired of family members attacking me for what I write here.

I am trying to redirect my thoughts towards the baby and just trying to look forward to the summer.

As for baby stuff, with Daniel, I never had a sling, I simply carried him everywhere. I would love any recommendations for slings/types of slings/where to purchase/etc. Same for cloth diapers. Daniel was CD starting around 12 months of age and it was mostly pre-folds and covers. I am looking at these sites (Good Mama, Green Mountain Diapers for pre-folds, Firefly Diapers, Cheeky Diapers for covers, BumGenius) for my future purchases, any reviews/recommendations again would be appreciated.

Oh and any natural/wood child online stores would be great, it drives me nuts how many toys my son has, toys that he never plays with either as he is more interested in video games/computers/playing outside. I would love to paint a portion of his wall with blackboard chalk paint, then he could go buck wild with his creativity.

I am at a loss for baby names right now. I am pondering the following: Julian, Sky, Ash, Cole. I never realized how hard it was to come up with a name. With my oldest I knew years before he was even conceived that he would be a Daniel. This one on the other hand, has been such a surprise that I feel sort of stuck on what to do. I’ve been feeling a lot more movement lately, it’s weird, with my oldest I felt him early on and it was very strong movements, with this baby I have an anterior placenta so not only are the movements softer but not as frequent. Drives me insane.

Anyway, I am hoping we are all recovered by the weekend (and have decent weather!) so we can go to the farmer’s market finally. Even just going to the park again would be nice. I know we are all fed up with being stuck in the house. I am no good with inside rainy day/sick day activities.

Oh where to start. I feel like I have a billion jumbled thoughts all fighting for attention bouncing around right now. Lately I’ve been really evaluating this current pregnancy, the upcoming birth, and babyhood if you will. Even though I co-slept from day one with my son, breastfed him until he self weaned (no pacifiers/formula/bottles/etc), cloth diapered him, was very hands on (didn’t use a crib/swing/bouncy seat, etc), no vax, no CIO, everyone seems SO shocked when I plan on doing the same with the new baby. Or on the other hand take HUGE offense to it and either bitch me out that I am “putting their choices down” or spending 45 min justifying how they parent. I don’t understand that.

I’ve been told by “friends” that I should NOT consider a VBAC (first son was footling transverse breech, found out at 38 wks when I had switched evil OB’s), because after almost 8 years and having a classic “bikini” cut, I “will” have a uterine rupture. Um no. I have researched that extensively and my chances are practically nil.

That I should always keep disposable diapers around for those who refuse to touch a cloth diaper, which boggles my mind since AIO’s or fitteds are just as easy to use.

Another issue I have is that my father, even though I reached out and told him the sex of the new baby and my due date, hasn’t made an effort to contact me or my 7 yr old son. My 7 yr old son’s biological father has made ZERO attempts to call/write/email him. What hurts me even more is that my son has only negative things to say about “daddy” and I use that term very loosely. BD #2’s mother hasn’t made any effort to be pro-active and get to know me, her “step” grandson, or future grandchild. I won’t even get started on how my rather active social life and “friends” disappeared when I became pregnant.

I am trying not to worry about the impending birth (since I still have a few months) but I can already foresee a lack of support and advocacy for me and the baby. This time around I am trying to go with CNM’s but that doesn’t really mean a whole heck of a lot to me really since it will still be a hospital VBAC.

I worry that I have NO clue what to name this baby. I worry that people will go against my wishes and share the sex of the baby with specific IRL individuals that I don’t want to have ANYTHING to do with (or I would have told them myself). I am tired that I feel like it’s a competition on whose pregnancy was worse, whose birth was more/less painful, whose parenting had the most struggles. I am so worn out from people taking everything I do/say for MYSELF and MY children as a personal attack against them and their parenting.

Isn’t it punishment enough that I am so alone during one of the most important times in my life? Apparently self pity isn’t allowed because, again, my pregnancy is NOTHING compared to the difficulties everyone else has had.

So yesterday afternoon, I’m standing outside with the boyfriend, two insane women, and two police officers, and all I could think about was, “do not throw up in front of the officers, hyperemesis or not that would be awful”.

See since I’ve been with my boyfriend, living together, I noticed he had a large volume of stray cats around the house, I also had noticed that someone (not him) was putting out bowls of food and water around OUR house for these cats, which also brought forth skunks, raccoons, and possums. Nothing like trying to go to sleep and hearing a cat vs. skunk fight and having to shut all the windows in the house due to the skunk weaponry.

So back to yesterday, I am sitting on the bed, getting my maternity pants on (always a delight), when the BF comes and tells me, “the crazy cat lady is here!”. I always told him I would unleash the pregnancy rage if she didn’t pack the crap up and stay off our property. I prance outside (as fast as I can at 5 1/2 months pregnant), and I said very nicely to this older female with crazy eyes, “Please get off my property, it makes me feel unsafe that you are trespassing and causing an issue with stray feral animals that could potentially hurt me, my unborn child, or my 7yr old son.” Well she got ALL snappy with me and started to come at me and invaded my personal bubble. Now as any pregnant mother can attest to, you do NOT get into their bubble and make them feel physically threatened. Within 2 seconds flat I am, at the top of my voice, which is loud thanks to a father who is deaf and being Italian heh, stated, “I am PREGNANT and you are HARASSING me and TRESPASSING. You WILL leave NOW or I will call the police”.  Obviously she chose the police route.

So she starts screaming at me, trying to get to the front door because she swears that MY boyfriend, father of my new child, is going to side with her about feeding feral animals around OUR house? Um. Right. Now I told him to stay inside because I had this handled. When she started yelling at me I turned around, went up to my front door, asked the BF for his cell phone. I then called 911, explained the situation, that I had a strange woman feeding feral animals, yelling at me when I asked her to leave, that I was almost 6 months pregnant, and felt threatened. I don’t think CCL (crazy cat lady) thought I was serious until I started to describe her van and shared her license plate number with the 911 operator. She proceeded to get into her van and drive off, I told the operator the direction she was headed in, and as I was about to get off the phone and wait for the officers to arrive, CCL and another, slightly younger woman walked up onto my driveway. Just then the 2 police cars pulled up.

The male officer spoke to the two women while the female officer spoke to me and walked with me around the house and she was horrified to see what the CCL had been up to. Full water bowls, full bowls of dry and wet food, make shift cat houses with foil, and much more. I explained how stressful this was on me and the household overall. I then had the BF come outside because I knew my temper was starting to really rise which makes me nauseated every more heh. The CCL went nuts, going on and on how she actually would capture the animals, PAY out of her own pocket to spay/neuter them and THEN release them back at our house! Instead of taking them to a shelter or no-kill shelter, she was leaving these cats to deal with the harsh Illinois winters (and weather overall), and the aggressive animals in the area that tend to fight with the cats almost nightly.

So then it’s a circle of all of us at the end of the driveway, with the two women telling me I shoot just murder the animals, that I hate cats, (anyone that knows me, knows that isn’t true, we actually have two cats as well currently, one of which sadly has cancer), and just going NUTS. The officers of course sided with me as I am the not insane one. The officers explained that I could press charges if they show up on my property again, especially if the cats seem to still be around even though they have no food source (that we can see).

Yeppers, now if that all made sense I will feel very proud of myself!